


Phillip

by iloveitblue



Series: Prompts [109]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: M/M, preslash, toddler!Phil
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-11
Updated: 2015-01-29
Packaged: 2018-02-20 19:04:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2439494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iloveitblue/pseuds/iloveitblue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The one where Clint takes care of Phillip</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Everybody stared at the kid sitting against Clint’s hips. The [kid](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ck2yc-vhpEU/Ts3i_L8BVSI/AAAAAAAABFk/A8ku-BMZji4/s1600/Jahns274.JPG) stared at Clint. 

"Cute kid." Tony snapped out of the trance first.

"Uh… I didn’t know you had a kid?" Clint said after a while of fidgeting from the kid and himself.

"I don’t." Hill told them, smirking before she turns on her heels. "He’s Phil’s." Hill used the second wave of shock from everyone in the room to make her escape.

"Wait! What’s his-" Steve tried to yell after Hill, but she was already gone. "name. So much for that."

Clint stared at the child some more and the child tilted its head at Clint. The child was adorable. He had short brown hair, and big brown eyes, his lips pouted out little and he was wearing a Captain America shirt. Wonder who’s brilliant idea that was.

"What’s your name little guy?" Clint asked him, a smile on his face.

"Phillip." The kid said in a tiny, tiny voice.

"Nice to meet you Phillip. My name is Clint. These are my friends." Clint gestured to the rest of the Avengers. "We’re going to be taking good care of you for now, Is that okay?" 

Phillip gave a nod.

"Do you know where your parents are?" 

"The scary lady says my mom is not here and my dad is still in the army. She says they can’t find my mom. Is my mom dead?" Phillip asked Clint.

Clint got thrown off by the question, what kind of child understood the concept of death anyway? “I don’t know, sweetie… But if she’s still alive, SHIELD is going to bring her back to you, okay?”

Phillip nodded.

—-

Getting Phillip to open up wasn’t as hard as they thought it would be. For the most part, it seemed like he knew everyone in some way or the other. The first few hours, he clung to Clint like glue; following him around, eating whatever Clint was eating (which actually was a good thing since Clint had the appetite of a child), basically acting like a baby duck following its mother around. 

Then it was Steve - Well, Steve and Clint. Steve drew with Phillip. and made him sandwiches and went to bother Tony. Clint said no when Steve wanted to bring Phillip to the gym, so instead, they both brought Phillip to Central Park for fresh air.

After that, Phillip had to have a check up from Bruce. He wasn’t sure what for but unlike any children Bruce has seen, and some grown ups too - Tony and Clint - Phillip was a perfectly behaved little boy. He even got a lollipop after his check up.

It was Tony’s turn next, not that the genius volunteered for babysitting duty. Instead, Phillip was the one who insisted that Clint and him go down to the workshop to go see Tony. When they were there, Phillip started asking questions about Tony’s health and what the glowy thing in his chest was. Tony seemed impressed by the boy’s interest in Science, so he allowed them to stay for a few hours.

Natasha was up next. Unlike other days where she would usually be found in the living room cleaning her knives; she was cleaning out her guns - All magazines safely in her room. Phillip’s eyes sparkled as he made his way to the table. He asked permission from Natasha, who sat next to him, before he started stripping the gun. Natasha’s expression was as straight as it always was, but Clint could see the surprise in it. 

Phillip was going to sleep in Clint’s room. But not before a story from Thor. Instead of reading from storybooks though, Thor told Phillip about heroes and battles and first loves. Phillip was asleep in no time. 

—-

In the middle of an episode of Real Housewives, Bruce came into the room frowning at the papers he held. 

"What’s wrong?" Natasha asked him. 

"I just finished the 5th trial I had on Phillip’s blood." Bruce told them.

"And?" Steve prompted. 

"Is he ill?" Thor questioned.

"Is something wrong? Do we need to go to a Hospital?" Clint asked, suddenly worried.

"I can get Happy to bring the car around in 5 minutes." Tony offered.

"No. No, It’s- It’s not that. I- I just. Phillip has the same genetic make-up as Phil did."

"Well, that makes sense, he is his son, right?" Clint reminded him.

"The  _exact_  same genetic make-up. 100%” 

"So what are you saying? That Phillip is a clone or something?" Steve asked.

"That the thing. If he was, then there’d be at least a .01% difference in his structure, but… I did the tests 5 times, and the results are all the same. Plus every cell in his body is at least as old as Phil is."

"So what’re you saying?" Clint asked him, suddenly finding the room a little too warm.

"I’m saying… The child sleeping in your room right now  _is_  Phil.” 


	2. Chapter 2

Phillip jolted awake when Clint climbed carefully into the bed. 

"Shhh, It’s just me. Go back to sleep, Phillip." Clint hushed him, pulling the covers over both of them.

"Clin’?" Phillip muttered before turning and wiggling closer to Clint. He sighed, satisfied with snuggling close to Clint and drifted back off to sleep.

Clint wrapped an arm around the little boy protectively. If what Bruce said was right, then this really was Phil and Clint would be crazy if he let anything happen to him the second time around.

Clint let the quiet lull of Phillip’s breathing calm him, pull him to sleep.

—-

The Avengers remained still. Trying to comprehend the bomb that Bruce just dropped on them.

"What do you mean HE’S Phil?" Clint finally asked.

"I don’t know how to explain it myself. The tests don’t lie, and I did the tests at least five times each - I had to test the other samples more than I had to because it was simply impossible. But it all came out the same.

"Phillip is not Phil’s son. He is Phil." Bruce handed the papers to Natasha for her to look over and pass around.

"Perhaps it was the work of magic." Thor suggested.

"I tested that too. No weird waves similar to magic. If it is, then its something we’ve never encountered before. No trace of anything actually. Phillip is a healthy four-year old boy who, you know, happens to also be the 40-something Phil Coulson."

The team remained silent, trying to think of ways to validate this new info in their own ways, or reverse it if time came to that.

"So, what are we gonna do about this, Clint?" Tony asked.

Clint snapped his head up in time to see the rest of the Avengers waiting on him. Like he knew something they didn’t… Honestly, Clint didn’t know what to do. He was still trying to wrap his head around the fact that Phil was alive. He’s a toddler, sure. But he was alive. and with the line of work they were in, it wasn’t unusual to come across seemingly impossible scenarios. Clint just didn’t think one of those scenarios was Phil being alive.

"We’ll just have to wait and see." Clint finally responded, standing to go back to his room.

—-

Clint woke up to find his arm draped across the empty bed. He was fully awake in a second and alarmed at losing a child. He tried looking under the sheets and around his room when JARVIS spoke.

"The young master Phillip is in the kitchen with the rest of the Avengers, sir."

Clint sat back on the balls of his feet with a defeated sigh. He ran a hand through his hair and closed his eyes for a second. This was not how he wanted to start the morning. 

How did Phillip even manage to get out of bed without waking Clint up? Not even Natasha could do that.

Clint quickly made his way to the kitchen after changing out of his pajama pants to find Phillip sitting in a high chair and swinging his feet back and forth. Phillip beamed at him when he noticed Clint standing underneath the threshold.

"Goo’ Mornin’" Phillip greeted.

Clint padded his way to Phillip and ruffled his hair earning him an indignant huff from the boy. Clint grinned from ear to ear. “Why are you awake so early in the morning?” And how did you get out of bed without waking me up? Clint didn’t ask.

Phillip shoved a spoon full of sugary cereal in his mouth and shrugged at Clint. Phillip was polite enough to swallow his food first before he spoke. “‘Dunno. Jus’ woke up bu’ you were s’ill sleepin’ so I wen’ ‘t see ‘Asha.”

The other Avengers went about their usual morning business that usually meant a lot of grumbling and a whole table filled with food. Natasha sat quietly to the side, munching on an apple. She gave Clint a quick nod confirming Phillip’s story.

"Well, today we’re going to go back to Bruce’s lab, okay? He’s just going to make sure you’re okay."

"Is i’ gonn’ be long? I wann’ wash TV." Clint smiled at Phillip’s struggles with the letter ‘t’.

"We can watch TV in Bruce’s lab. and we can color there too. Anything you want. We just have to stay there for a bit though."

Phillip nodded readily, accepting his fate for the day. 

—-

Bruce had done everything and anything else he could think of to try and figure out what was going on, but so far there was nothing. Nothing he had on file, anyway. He was getting a little bit desperate and had sat down with Clint and Phillip in one of the tables to color and draw with them.

Phillip had drawn a marvelous picture of six little blobs and based on the color schemes, it was the Avengers. Only then did it click in Bruce’s mind.

"Phillip, what do you remember?" He asked curiously. "From before you were with us."

"No’ much." Phillip didn’t lift his head, just continued to color what Bruce assumed was Thor.

"Where have you seen the Avengers?"

Phillip paused, his crayon lifted a bit from the paper as he stared at his drawing. “I- I dunno.” Phillip scowled at his drawing then looked up at Bruce and Clint so helplessly scared. “I jus’- Am I gonn’ be punished?”

"No." Clint answered quickly. "Why would we do that?"

“‘coz I answer’d wrong.” Phillip looked like he was about to cry.

"No you didn’t, Phillip." Clint told him. "And even if you did, we’d never hurt you."

"Why would you think we’d hurt you, Phillip?" Bruce asked.

“‘coz the people with the sui’s always hurt me when I answered wrong.” Phillip stared down at his paper.

"What people with suits?"

"The ones tha’ took me from my airplane." 

"What did they look like, Phillip?"

"Like AIM scientists." Nick Fury stood by the door, Maria Hill trailing after him. "Phil Coulson was taken from his team roughly a week ago. We found him after 2 days but he was already in this condition. It seems they wished to extract information from Agent Coulson while he was a vulnerable child. They didn’t succeed, obviously." He stared at Phillip and the boy stared back, completely unafraid of the scary man in black with the eyepatch. "It took some time, but we found a way to turn him back. In the meantime, we had to have someone the older Phil Coulson trusted enough to take care of him since the child-version only seemed to respond to those people. That’s why we left him here with you."

—-

Phil opened his eyes slowly and groaned. He’s never felt this disoriented with a throbbing headache since the last time he was hungover. He surveyed the room he was in, it obviously wasn’t a hospital if the soft sheets and the plush pillows underneath him had anything to say about it. 

He turned his head to the side only to find Clint sitting on the floor, his head on the bed as he slept. Phil felt the hand in his and smiled. This was just like old times. One of them would be lying on the cot, and the other would sit worriedly waiting for the injured one to wake up. 

The hand holding thing was new though.

Phil immediately decided he liked it.

So much so that he unintentionally squeezed, not meaning to let go even if Clint stirred and his eyes slowly blinked awake. 

Clint met his eyes and scrambled to his knees. “Oh my god. You’re awake.”

Phil smiled at him, he didn’t know how much he missed Clint until he saw him again. “How long was I out?” 

"A few hours." Clint shrugged. "How much do you remember?"

Phil paused and racked his brain for the information he needed. “I remember…” Phil’s eyes widened but he didn’t move his hand. “Why are you here? You’re not supposed to-“

"Know that you’re alive? Yeah. Too late for that."

"I’m sorry. For lying." Phil felt like he didn’t have the right to hold Clint’s hand, but it also felt like it was the only thing keeping him drowning into despair right now. 

"Fury said it was a necessary evil. He’s getting yelled at by the Avengers as we speak. You didn’t have a say in it according to Maria."

"I didn’t." Phil nodded.

"Heard you tried to fly your way here against protocol couple of times."

Phil smiled at the memory of Melinda bursting into the cock pit and dragging Phil out by the ear. “Couple of times, yeah.” 

"Then that’s all that matters." Clint smiled, squeezing Phil’s hand.

"That simple?"

"That simple." Clint raised both their hands and kissed Phil’s knuckles. That was definitely new. A good new. A new that Phil was happy to accept. A new that probably involved more spending time with Clint. "Besides, if you think we’re letting you go after we got you back, you’re horribly mistaken."

**Author's Note:**

> [Here on tumblr](http://promptmephlint.tumblr.com/post/99729222086/this-is-such-a-cute-prompt-also-the-kid-in)


End file.
